An amateur's view on all things astrological | Neeti Ray

On Love

Venus is going through my twelfth; and we’ve all just come out of its conjunction to Neptune and Chiron. It’s still in Pisces, the sign of its exaltation. The sign of surrender, of dissolving of the self into the infinite void. I don’t know what Venus in Pisces is really like, but I have been thinking about love and here’s what I wrote while she drifts in my twelfth, while she drifts through the sign of the Fish:

Love cannot be forced, manipulated or extracted. Do any of that and you kill the magic, you break the fragile bubble that is love. It flows freely and picks its own direction. And all you can do is surrender. Maybe it’ll flow over you and then away; or maybe it’ll flow by you; or maybe you’ll be one of the lucky ones and it’ll bathe you in its glory forever.

There’s a great need in people for love, for romantic love. But I think we’re approaching this the wrong way when we pin it on someone and we pine. We pine, we suffer, we stumble, we curse, we cry. But why? I don’t see it like that anymore. I see it as an impersonal force that operates through us. It doesn’t matter who you pin it on or whether you direct it at someone or not. It doesn’t matter whether we’re genetically programmed for it to perpetuate the species or if it’s a mystical surge in God’s heart that finds its way in ours.

If you think of the vastness of space and the endlessness of time, you’ll see you’re just a speck on a blue dot hurtling through time headed for eventual oblivion. You’re surrounded by forces so large that you can barely comprehend them. You aren’t even in control of your own breath; your heart might stop any minute. But through this vast space, in these large currents that buffet you, you have felt love, yes? You have longed? And I hope, as you did, you gave blessings to the ones you loved and to the force of love itself, which as it flowed through you, divinized you. Took you out of your limited compass of self and swelled your heart so large that all humanity was bathed in your tenderness.

Love is not a terrible thing, longing is. Love is not a terrible thing, manipulation is. Love is not a terrible thing, but trying to force it into shapes it resists is. Terrible because it causes suffering and love should not be suffering. It should be a double blessing: for the one who feels it and the one who receives it. And we can make it like that. We can make love like that.

Bless it when it comes to you and let it go when it wants to leave. No matter what happens, you’ll always know that small speck of the Universe you might be, but something monumental, timeless, seeking, haunting touched you, too.

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14 Responses

Love-ly piece of writing Neeti :-)
Love to me has been a lifetime of longing and pain, until now. Until now where I just love a certain someone so deeply, so profoundly that it touches everything I do. To love and be loved is touching God. To me, love is all there is. Love is God. Love is divine.

Love Gibran – have you read Rumi?
“This is how I would die into the Love I have for you.
As pieces of cloud dissolve in Sunlight.” – one of my favourite quotes.

“And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. ” :)
and the other piece I love: “buy hyacinths to feed thy soul” (actually that’s my very last blogpost)

Brilliant post! I absolutely love it! I have Venus(ruler of ASC) cnj Mars in Pisces. My own idea of love is so ‘weird’ that I have kept it to myself mostly, but there is great relief to see how beautifully someone expressed it. I think there is a little ego overload in what people experience and call ‘love’ these days.

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Robert Currey on Astrology

Astrology is not something in which you believe or disbelieve. You either know about astrology or you don’t.

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In my work I see some remarkable truths. Even as I sit and explain to a person that they have this situation that has held them back all their lives, and even as I see them struggle to comprehend the truth and anguish of it, I, who witness it every day, am forcefully reminded of the wonder of this fleeting, myopic life we have and the axiomatic majesty of our astrology. This astrology does not contain your purpose: it is your purpose.